Someone has to.
Someone has to go.
Someone has to go down
in the dark, musty basement.
Someone has to.
Someone has to tip toe
along the concrete floor.
Someone has to.
Someone has to listen
for the quiet, steady snores.
Someone has to.
Someone has to slip aside
the hulking creature’s
big behind.
Someone has to.
Someone has to sidle by
before the giant
roars awake
its eyes alight
with raging flames.
Someone has to.
Someone has to run
for her life
and bring back
a roll of two-ply soft, white
toilet paper.

I’m so happy to be here! I’ve missed you all. Life has been busy and distracting. Thank goodness for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’ wonderful blog. Her spotlight interview with Carrie Clickard and Carrie’s challenge to write a poem about something that spooked you as a child were just what I needed. Wishing you all a happy Poetry Friday! Leigh Ann has the roundup at A Day in the Life.

What makes it a Power Book? In addition to the fabulous linked poems, each Power Book also includes a PowerPack of activities and writing prompts to support kids’ writing. The books are anthologies, activity books, and Language Arts workbooks, all rolled into one.

Designed for students in Kindergarten through Grade 3, Pet Crazy encourages kids to explore concepts such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and form.

My poem, Book Hound, is an acrostic about a dog that loves to be read to.

Like many of you, I have been dismayed by the current political climate. I hate seeing families and lives torn apart, the prioritization of profit over all else, including fresh air, clean water, and the future of our planet, the callous disregard for our shared human needs for education, health, choice, and respect. I could go on and on. It’s been hard for me to find the wonder in the world when what’s been staring me down has been the cruelty. I’ve struggled to turn pain into art–art worth sharing in any case. I’ve even wondered if writing is the best use of my time. This is one attempt to turn what I’m seeing and feeling into poetry.

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

Last Friday, Linda Mitchell suggested we share our favorite Billy Collins’ poems today in honor of our former Poet Laureate’s birthday. It was, of course, very hard to choose, and I see our Friday Poetry host Heidi Mordhorst and I chose the same one! So there you have it Happy Birthday, Billy Collins and thank you, Heidi for hosting today.

My friend
fell at recess
and scraped up
his knee.
I heard
some kids laugh—What a clown!
Did you see?
Though the sky
was bright blue,
in my heart
it felt gray,
so I sat
with my friend
till the pain
went away.

I’ve realized in recent years that I prefer to take my time to think about things. Apparently a lot of my thinking happens unconsciously because I find answers and connections seem to come to me almost out of the blue if I give them enough time. Around New Year’s Day when other people were announcing their one little words for the year, I tried very hard to find one, but nothing felt quite right. It wasn’t until this week that the word empathy rose to the surface.

I think of my mind as a kind of soup, churning and bubbling with crazy ingredients from all over the place. Here are a few of the ingredients that pushed empathy to the surface.

Years ago I heard about research that supports the notion that people who read literary fiction are more empathic. Isn’t that incredible? It makes perfect sense of course, but I love the idea that there has been research to support it.

[Literary fiction] prompts the reader to imagine the characters’ introspective dialogues. This psychological awareness carries over into the real world, which is full of complicated individuals whose inner lives are usually difficult to fathom. Although literary fiction tends to be more realistic than popular fiction, the characters disrupt reader expectations, undermining prejudices and stereotypes. They support and teach us values about social behavior, such as the importance of understanding those who are different from ourselves.

Understanding characters in literature helps us understand people in the world. Reading teaches us how to be empathic.

And as she continues to stare, you realize she sees you. And like a high-powered scanning machine she’s recording you. She is an observer and a thief. She waits to share what she has stolen on that sacred place, which is the screen. She makes the most heroic characters vulnerable; the most known, familiar; the most despised, relatable.

It is this seeing, this ability to empathize so deeply, which is the source of Ms. Streep’s power to convey another person, another life, on screen.

In her acceptance speech Ms. Streep chose to highlight a moment of extreme lack of empathy.

There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.

Indeed Ms. Streep’s empathy is so great she cannot let this moment go.

I agree with Ms. Streep that there is an important connection between empathy and politics. Who could take health insurance from someone if they could empathize with the pain of their fears and losses? Who could feel entitled to grab a woman if they could empathize with the violation of her personhood? Who could banish refugees and immigrants from our borders if they could empathize with the forces that would propel someone to leave their home and families?

I also agree with Ms. Streep on this point when she says, “an actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like.” Couldn’t the same be said of writers?

This year I will try to think of myself as a poet, writer, and teacher of empathy.

A Little About Me

I live in Washington, DC with my husband, two of my three kids (one has left the nest), and my sleepy cat, Scout. My book Soccer Nonsense is forthcoming from Boyds Mills Press. I am a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. When I get stuck with my writing, I go out for a walk for inspiration. You can see photographs from my walks on instagram at elizabethsteinglass.